Father Theobald Matthew

The Apostle of Temprance


-Born October 10, 1790 in Thomastown, Tipperary
-Studied at Kilkenny and Maynooth
-Ordained as a priest in 1814
-appointed Provincial of the Capuchin Order in Irelandin 1828
-Created the Botanic Gardens in 1830: a free cemetary for the poor


My goal was to have people throughout America pledge abstinence and temperance.
Startled by the horrible effects alcohol had on the people of Cork, I started a total abstinence and temperance movement. I started by holding meetings of the Cork Total Abstinence Society on Sunday nights. Within five months, 130,000 people had joined me in the pledge. I began spreading the message throughout Ireland. Afterwards I travelled to England to spread the pledge there. In my first three months, I had given it to 600,000 English citizens. When I returned to Cork, Ireland, I began to work for charities, putting the construction of his church on hold. After two years, I travelled to America and secured over 500,000 followers.
Over my spread of the pledge, he gained 7,000,000 followers. A bronze statue of me was put up in Cork and a marble one in Dublin. The Father Matthew Memorial Hall in Dublin was made to continue my work.

The request for President Jackson is to provide money for expenses and charities and to help spread the temperance message throughout America.

"Is it not a terrible thing to think that so much wholesome grain, that God intended for the support of human life, should be converted into maddening poison, for the destruction of man's body and soul? By a calculation recently made, it is clearly proved that if all the grain now converted into poison were devoted to its natural and legitimate use, it would afford a meal to every man, woman and child in the land. The man or woman who drinks, drinks the food of the starving! And is not that man or woman a monster who drinks the food of the starving?" -Father Theobald Matthew, 1847
external image Theobald_Mathew.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/03/Theobald_Mathew.jpg
statue3.jpg
http://www3.villanova.edu/centennial/statue3.jpg


Works Cited

"An Address Delivered By Father Matthew." 2 October 2008. <http://www.assumption.edu/ahc/Theresa's%20Main%20Folder/Web%20page%20folder/Speeches/Fr%20Mathew%20Speech.html>.

"Father Mathew's Life." The Website of Father Matthew. 2 October 2008. <http://www.fathermathew.ie/>

Knight, Kevin. "Theobald Matthew." New Advent. 2 October 2008. <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10047a.htm>.